There are two fundamental modes of operation in a digital radiotelephone, namely, a control mode and a communication mode. During the control mode, the portable radiotelephone intermittently receives paging information from a remote transceiver while waiting to either receive or place a phone call using the radiotelephone. After initially powering up, the portable radiotelephone turns on the radio receiver until the radio receiver receives a frame of information from the remote transceiver, which contains all of the timing information for the radiotelephone. Once the timing information is received, the portable radiotelephone receives paging information on an intermittent basis. FIG. 4 is an illustration of the timing requirements for a particular radiotelephone system defined by the RCR specification (second generation cordless telephone system standard specification, August, 1992, section 4.2.7). Timing graph 401 is an illustration of the timing requirements for a remote transceiver and timing graph 403 is a timing graph for a radio receiver used in a portable radiotelephone. Typically, the portable radio receiver is on for one slot every four seconds, or 0.0156 percent as derived from the RCR specification. It is well known that lowering power consumption and extending battery life of a portable radiotelephone is desirable. Thus, it would be advantageous to shut off as much circuitry as possible during this four second stand-by period to reduce the power consumption of the portable radiotelephone. Additionally, it would be advantageous to inexpensively implement this power saving feature in the portable radiotelephone.